Create, alter, and inspect Matroska (mkv) files.

MKVtoolnix is a set of tools to create, alter, and inspect Matroska files under OS X, Linux and other Unices, and Windows. They do for Matroska what the OGMtools do for the OGM format and then some.

Since May 1st 2003, the Matroska libraries themselves and my Matroska tools are officially released as a first public beta version. Although all of them are still under heavy development, I urge you to download the software, test it and report any errors you encounter to me. I'm always grateful for good bug reports because I miss so many mistakes and you guysMore...

What's New

Version 20.0.0:

Feature removal: several deprecated features have been removed:

mkvmerge: the deprecated options `--identify-verbose` (and its counterpart `-I`), `--identify-for-gui`, `--identify-for-mmg` and `--identification-format verbose-text`all command line tools: support for the deprecated, old, proprietary format used for option filesall command line tools: support for passingMore...

MKVtoolnix is a set of tools to create, alter, and inspect Matroska files under OS X, Linux and other Unices, and Windows. They do for Matroska what the OGMtools do for the OGM format and then some.

Since May 1st 2003, the Matroska libraries themselves and my Matroska tools are officially released as a first public beta version. Although all of them are still under heavy development, I urge you to download the software, test it and report any errors you encounter to me. I'm always grateful for good bug reports because I miss so many mistakes and you guys normally find them. Your feedback is important to me :)

Note: While the software is classified as free, it is actually donationware. Please consider making a donation to help support development.

Version 20.0.0:

Feature removal: several deprecated features have been removed:

mkvmerge: the deprecated options `--identify-verbose` (and its counterpart `-I`), `--identify-for-gui`, `--identify-for-mmg` and `--identification-format verbose-text`all command line tools: support for the deprecated, old, proprietary format used for option filesall command line tools: support for passing command line options via the deprecated environment variables `MKVTOOLNIX_OPTIONS`, `MKVEXTRACT_OPTIONS`, `MKVINFO_OPTIONS`, `MKVMERGE_OPTIONS` and `MKVPROPEDIT_OPTIONS`

mkvinfo: most of its code was re-written in order to lay the groundwork for including its functionality in MKVToolNix GUI but with more features than the existing mkvinfo GUI. The result is that a lot of its output has been changed slightly while keeping the basic layout. Changes include but aren't limited to:

Several element names are a bit clearer (e.g. `Maximum cache` instead of `MaxCache`).All timestamps and durations are now output as nanoseconds in formatted form (e.g. `01:23:45.67890123`). All additional formats (e.g. floating point numbers output in seconds or milliseconds) were removed.Element names for chapters and tags are now translated if a translation is available.Elements located in wrong positions within the Matroska document are handled better.

While mkvinfo's output is mostly kept very stable, it is not designed to be parsed by other utilities. Even though I've tried hard to cram all changes and cleanups into this version, additional changes may be made in the next couple of releases depending on user feedback and bug reports.

New Features and Enhancements:

Bug Fixes:

mkvmerge: AVC/h.264 parser: when fixing the bitstream timing information mkvmerge will now use exact representations of the desired field duration if possible. For example, when indicating 50 fields/second `num_units_in_tick` is set to 1 and `time_scale` to 50 instead of 5368709 and 268435456. Part of the fix for #1673.

mkvmerge: AVC/h.264 parser: mkvmerge no longer assumes that encountering sequence parameter set or picture parameter set NALUs signal the start of a new frame. Fixes #2179.

mkvmerge: AVC/h.264 packetizer (framed): when mkvmerge is told to fix the bitstream timing information, it will now update all SPS NALUs, not just the ones in the AVCC. Part of the fix for #1673.

mkvmerge: MPEG TS reader: TS packet payloads will only be treated as PES packets if the payload actually starts with a PES start code. The prior behavior led to wrong timestamps and potentially broken frame data. Fixes #2193.

mkvmerge: MPEG TS reader: mkvmerge will now drop incomplete PES packets as soon as an error is detected in the transport stream instead of passing the incomplete frame to the packetizer. An error is assumed either if the `transport_error_indicator` flag is set or if the value of the `continuity_counter` header field doesn't match the expected value. Fixes #2181.

mkvmerge: Opus: when re-muxing Opus from Matroska mkvmerge will now write "block duration" elements for all block groups where a "discard padding" is set, too. Fixes #2188.

mkvmerge: read buffer I/O class: the class could get out of sync regarding the file position of the underlying file I/O class causing wrong data to be returned on subsequent read operations. One result was that trying to identifying MPLS files that refer to very short M2TS files caused mkvmerge to segfault.

mkvmerge: multiplexer core: if there's a gap in audio timestamps, a new block group/lace will be started for the first frame after each gap. Before the fix the frame after the gap was often stored in the previous block group causing the gap to be in the wrong place: at the end of that block group. Fixes #1700.

mkvextract: AVC/h.264: if two consecutive IDR frames with the same `idr_pic_id` parameter and no access unit delimiters are found between them, mkvextract will insert an access unit delimiter in order to signal the start of a new access unit. Fixes #1704.